AEW's Paul Wight Opens Up About What Al Snow Has Done With OVW, As Seen On Netflix's Wrestlers
Paul Wight has seemingly been everywhere for AEW the past few days to promote tonight's "AEW Dynamite" in Louisville, Kentucky. That included a stop in Ohio Valley Wrestling — a homecoming of sorts for the wrestling giant — as he spent time in the promotion when it was part of WWE development to work on his conditioning between 2000 and 2001.
During a recent episode of "The Battleground Podcast," Wight spoke at length about his OVW experience while also discussing what it looks like now under the guidance of Al Snow — as seen on the Netflix docu-series "Wrestlers."
"It was a great experience to see that new Danny Davis Arena was nice, to see what Al Snow has done with everything, the success that they've had with their Netflix," Wight said. "The nice group of talent that they have there — they have a lot of great talent that are learning about how to work on TV and present their characters ... Those are the wholesome things that pro wrestling, I think, needs. You need a lot of places like OVW and a lot of places like that to help talent to find out who they are, to be more authentic," he added.
But he also saw a bit of AEW in the way OVW operates by letting wrestlers find their own voices. "That's one of the things about AEW that always attracted me to AEW is the authenticity. It's not your cookie cutter 'Stand here, pose here, here's your promo, here's your character name,'" he continued. "It's more authentic, kind of like it's got an old-school feel where it comes from the wrestlers themselves. I understand it's different; there's all kinds of ways of doing business. But I'm really appreciative of Tony Khan's ability to let the talent discover and find themselves, and then he works that into the show."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "The Battleground Podcast" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription